NOTD-Turquoise Sparkle

I am awful at painting nails-I previously confessed this in my "beauty things I suck at" post. But God loves a trier! Even though the weather has been decidedly unsummer-like, I've loved wearing bright colours on my nails, and when I want to do this I always reach for Barry M nail polishes-they are cheap but brilliant quality. 

For these sparkly turquoise nails, I applied the Gelly Hi-Shine Nail Paint in Guava-this is a recently released colour, it is opaque in one coat and dries super quick. On top I applied two coats of the Nail Paint in Aqua Glitter. These colours are an exact match and the result was a shimmery sparkly bright turquoise delight. It reminds me of swimming pools and blue skies on holiday. It's also foolproof-if I can do this anyone can. What colours have you been wearing on your nails for summer? Thanks for reading, Love Steph xxx

Max Factor Colour Elixir Giant Pen Stick

Nearly every makeup brand has brought out some kind of twisty uppy lip pencil product, and I myself have reviewed a couple, but I haven't read much about Max Factors offering. These are called Colour Elixir Giant Pen Sticks, they were released a good few months ago and they caught my eye on a display in Boots. 

There were a gorgeous range of shades available to choose from, including a bright pink, a red and a deeper berry colour but as I'm still holding out hope that we get some kind of summer, I opted for the shade "Subtle Coral". The reason I was drawn to these was because when I swatched them they had a beautiful hi shine finish-like a pigmented gloss in pencil form. However, the product on the lips doesn't have that sticky feeling some glosses have, and it feels quite moisturising. I love the color of this, which the shade name describes perfectly-it's a gorgeous natural coral which, in my opinion, absolutely anyone will suit. I find orange/coral a hard shade to get right on the lips-some make your teeth look yellow, and some need a tan to be worn without looking like your ill! This pencil doesn't twist up so it needs to be sharpened. The lasting power without eating or drinking anything is about 2 hours. But I wouldn't really expect anything more from a glossy moisturising finish so this doesn't bother me personally but worth keeping in mind if you're looking for something long lasting. I think this is going to be my favourite lip product this summer and I really would recommend the Max Factor Colour Elixirs-I'd definitely love to get some more colours. Have you tried these? Thanks for reading, Love Steph xxx

How I store my makeup

I decided to share how I store my makeup in a post today-it's not perfect and I have issues keeping my kids grubby little mitts off my goodies so I am intending on getting a more sturdy set of drawers in the near future from Ikea to match my malm dresser. But for now this is it.

As I mentioned, I use the malm desk from ikea as my dresser, on top of which are my brushes, stored in a couple of pen/stationery holders. These are a shiny black quilted texture and were a bargain at £2.99 each from Home Bargains. My lipsticks stay in acrylic holders which I got from eBay for £3.49 each, these are so handy as I can keep each brand stored together, or colour co-ordinate if I want, and it means with them all on display I don't forget about things I've bought.

On my windowsill beside the desk I keep my Sleek and MUA eyeshadow palettes in an old glossy box and my MAC and Stila palettes are slotted alongside.

Directly under the dresser is a small set of bathroom storage drawers which holds the bulk of my stash. I bought this a couple of years ago from Argos, and the dividers in some of the drawers I inserted myself-they're made of fabric and are wardrobe organisers from Ikea. In the top drawer I keep base products-foundation, concealer, powder, highlighters and bronzers. The separated section is all blush.

In the second drawer I keep lip pencils, with the divider holding lip glosses.

The third drawer is home to eye pencils, false lashes, liquid and gel liners and spare mascara.

The bottom drawer and my favourite one is for all my loose eyeshadows, smaller palettes, pigments and eyeshadow bases.

How do you store your makeup? Thanks for reading, Love Steph xxx

FOTD

I always delay doing these posts because I hate taking pictures of myself, I am rubbish at said pictures as you shall see below, and I make excuses not to (I had caterpillar eyebrows, an invisible blemish etc etc). However today it's sunny so I thought the light would maybe help me in my worse than amateur photography.

I've bought some new products recently so I gave them a whirl and here's the end result. I used:

Revlon Colourstay in Buff

Collection Lasting Perfection concealer (02)

Revlon Nearly Naked Powder in Light

MUA Brow Kit

No.7 Lash and Brow Fixer

Dainty Doll Blush (money talks) as contour

No.7 Blush in Coral Flush

Stila "In the Light" Eyeshadow palette-bare, kitten and sunset-and the brown pencil it comes with to line my top lash line.

Rimmel Scandaleyes liner in bronze for lower lash line

Maybelline the Falsies flared mascara

Clarins Instant Light Natural Lip Perfector in 02 Apricot Shimmer

And that's it! Thanks for reading, Love Steph xxx

How I Remove My Makeup

I love applying and wearing makeup but when the day is over I also really look forward to taking it off. I thought I'd share what I use to get all makeup products off my face before I cleanse at night.

I, like a lot of other bloggers, raced to get Elle magazine this month to get my sample of Benefits They're Real mascara, and I was aware before using this that it is known for being a pain in the arse to remove. I've been using No.7 Eye makeup remover to do this-it's hypoallergenic and suitable for all skin types. You can see from the picture below that mine is almost all gone, so the double layer isn't visible here, but it does have two layers which you shake to mix before use. This produces an oil-based liquid which I put on a cotton pad and swipe across my eyes. This stuff is amazing, one swipe usually takes all my eye makeup off straight away, but with waterproof mascara I leave the cotton pad on my eye to break down the product before I swipe. I use one pad on each eye, front and back, and eye makeup is gone. Magic! This is available at Boots and online and is £8.50

For the rest of my face I used to use makeup remover wipes but lots of them sting my skin, or dry it out so I wanted to try something gentler. I stumbled across the Loreal Skin Perfection 3in1 Purifying Micellar Solution in Asda, it was on offer for £3 so I picked it up and I'm so glad I did. I apply to a cotton pad, sweep across my face and all traces of makeup are gone. This leaves my skin feeling squeaky clean and soft, it doesn't burn or sting and it's much more cost effective than buying pack after pack of makeup remover wipes. After these two steps I'm ready to cleanse in the shower/bath.

How do you remove your makeup?

Thanks for reading, Love Steph xxx

What's in my travel makeup bag?

I rarely travel from home, but had to get up at 6am today to catch a train for an induction day for my new job. Usually I do makeup at home but to save time I brought it with me as the train journey was lonnngggg. Hopefully I didn't horrify too many people pre-makeup! I thought I'd post about what products I brought-these are the things that work, last all day and I know I can trust. I didn't wear eyeshadow today but if I had wanted to I would've brought my Urban Decay Naked2 pallette.
To prep my skin I brought Nivea Oil Free Moisturising Day Cream, which does what it says on the tin, and helps to mattify as its oil free and geared towards combination skin. I then applied Benefit Porefessional as a primer to fill in pores and help my foundation last longer. My base consisted of Revlon Colourstay foundation and concealer and Nearly Naked powder-these three work really well together. To contour I used Dainty Doll blush in Money Talks, and for blush I used My Girl also from Dainty Doll. Like a gazillion other bloggers I got mine super cheap from fragrancedirect.co.uk and I'm really impressed with the pigmentation and lasting power of these. I filled my brows in with MUA brow kit, then applied painterly paint pot from MAC on my eyelids just to even out any redness and discolouration there. For mascara I brought Loreal Telescopic Infinite Length mascara. And that was it, I didn't put anything other than a lip balm on my lips. My brushes are pictured below and are a mixture of Real Techniques, Crownbrush and Royal and Langnickel. This was as basic as I get with makeup but I hope it helps others to see what products I love and what works for me. Do you use any of these? Thanks for reading, Love Steph xxx

Revlon Colourstay Concealer

I always wondered why my favourite Revlon Colourstay foundation didn't have a trusty concealer sidekick-well it does now! The Colourstay concealer is a new product, I spied it for the first time in Boots a couple of weeks ago and picked it up in 02 Light. I use the shade "Buff" in the foundation and was pleased when this perfectly matched it.
I've been using this the last few days in favour of the Collection lasting perfection concealer, and this may shock people(!) but I actually prefer it.
I find that any concealer I've tried in the past has a tendency to settle into that pesky crease under my eye during the day, but this really doesn't. It's got a more liquid consistency than the Collection concealer, but the coverage is as good-it covers the darkness under my eyes and it lasts from when I put it on til I take my makeup off at night. I apply mine using either the small end of a beauty blender or my Real Techniques deluxe crease brush. It blends really easily into the skin and then I set it with Revlon Nearly Naked powder. So now my whole base is Revlon-this pleases me as I'm a bit OCD matchy-matchy like that.
I can't tell you what this is like for concealing blemishes as I don't often get many but I'm really pleased I found this gem and will be using it from now on.
This costs £6.99 from Boots- they also have a 3 for 2 offer on Revlon at the minute.
Have you tried/will you be trying this concealer? Thanks for reading, Love Steph xxx